It was a full house of deals on Dragons’ Den tonight as guest judge Gary Neville returned to the Den.
The businessman, broadcaster and former footballer joined Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Steven Bartlett and Touker Suleyman as they put another set of business hopefuls to the test.
Sprive
Jinesh Vohra, a former Goldman Sachs director, won a deal with three of the Dragons for his free app tackling the problem of mortgage overpayments.
Launched in 2021, the app looks to allow homeowners to pay off their mortgage faster through their everyday shopping, by automatically putting spare cash towards overpayments and by continuously scanning the market to help customers find better mortgage deals.
Vohra said it makes money in two ways: when people shop through app, and when people pay their mortgages through the app. It has partnered with many household names such as John Lewis.
The London startup closed a £5.5m funding round last April from instituional investors and Channel4Ventures.
However at the time of filming, Vohra said it was losing £30-35k a month and it cost £20 to acquire a customer. There were 25,000 homeowners on the app and he was looking for another 40,000.
These figures scared off Bartlett and Neville, but Jones, Meaden and Suleyman were very taken by his progress and background and agreed to share £50k for 5% of the business.
“We may have been a bit naive there dropping out early,” Neville told Bartlett.
My Skin Feels
Danielle Close from Brighton won backing from Neville and Meaden for My Skin Feels.
Founded in 2023, it is a vegan skincare brand that ferments rescued organic food waste from the Italian food and drinks industry.
One of the early people working at Charlotte Tilbury, the professional psychic medium turned down an offer from Jones to give the other two 10% of the business apiece for £25k each.
Techies’ side hustle becomes national coffee subscription business
Swish
Married couple Ben and Natalia Reeves won £90k split between Jones, Neville and Suleyman – for a total stake of 30% – for Swish, a portable golf ball cleaner.
Jones and Neville understand the problem of muddy golf balls being less accurate but want them to adapt their ‘Pac-man-like’ product to also clean club heads.
We reported today how Jones has bought American Golf – so there could be a fantastic sales outlet for them there.
Flavour Bombs
The final pitcher was Flavour Bombs, founded by married duo Tina Faghihi-Hallam and Olly Hallam – a tech team leader and film industry worker respectively – who negotiated a deal with Jones.
Described as the ‘bath bomb for your saucepan’, each Flavour Bomb contains a complete spice base for a dish – no half-used herbs, forgotten spices or wasted ingredients left mouldering in the fridge. They have 3.5m views on TikTok and have passed £100,000 turnover after launching in 2024.
The couple were looking for £50k for 10% of the company, but Jones wanted a third of it for the money. Neville and Suleyman offered the money for 20%, but they went back to Jones to do a deal for 25%.
Before the offer, Jones said Faghihi-Hallam is the driving force and Hallam can go back to being a cameraman.
Afterwards, Neville said she was celebrating the idea that Jones had “just sacked her husband”.